Centaur Siege Bow

[loimprevisto]

I've been thinking about how centaurs could take advantage of their size and mass during warfare, and I remembered an idea about them using oversized bows. I have a concept, but I'd like some help developing it.

Simple/probably balanced: The bow is a weapon built for Large creatures, there is a spike on the bottom which may be planted firmly in the ground to ignore the -2 penalty. As long as the weapon is braced in this manner a centaur can apply its full weight to drawing the bow and ignore the Undersized Weapons rule. (2d6 damage/160' range increment)

More complicated/possibly unbalanced: The bow counts as a weapon built for size Huge creatures. It cannot be fired without the spike on the bottom being driven firmly into the ground (a move action). The weapon can be fired once per round as a standard action, treating the weapon as one size class smaller for purposes of the penalty of wielding an oversized weapon. When properly braced a centaur can apply its full body weight to drawing the bow and unleash arrows with devestating momentum. (3d6 damage/220' range increment)

Thoughts?

[Fredrik]

I like the first -- with maybe a swift action to drive the spike in the ground? -- but not the second. It's an intuition, so I can't really explain it.

ETA: Also, it would only help with ground-level critters. Having to angle the bow up or down -- such as for flying or swimming critters -- would require pulling it out (swift or free?).

[whitewolve202]

By any chance did you get the idea for the whole spike thing from Dark Souls? 'Cause there's a bow in there that does the same exact thing. And it's huge.

Anyway, I would hazard to say both are fairly balaned, if only because using it gives up a centaur's greatest advantage (imho), which is their mobility on the battlefield.

[Movin]

My suggestion would be to use the first option. Instead of increasing damage though I would say let the centaur add its strength bonus to the shot, then add an additional say +1-+2 to damage on it for letting the centaur throw its entire weight behind the shot.
On average you would end up with about the same damage, in some cases better.
The bow would be much cheaper than a composite bow of the same strength and would be a very powerful weapon of war for the Centaurs.

3.5 had a weapon with a similar idea from Frostburn. Exotic weapon called the bone bow that you could plant to use your stength with. Was good for classes with a variable strength score that became archers. Like druids shooting people as gorillas.

[Robert Jordan]

My immediate thought was of Sgt. Detritus of the Ahkh-Morpork City Watch from Discworld. I think they both look ok, but I think playtesting would have to occur to figure out the flaws of both. As for shooting up just explain that it's on a swivel so you can angle it.

[Fredrik]

Robert Jordan wrote:

My immediate thought was of Sgt. Detritus of the Ahkh-Morpork City Watch from Discworld. I think they both look ok, but I think playtesting would have to occur to figure out the flaws of both. As for shooting up just explain that it's on a swivel so you can angle it.

That works a lot better for a crossbow, where the angle of the swivel is perpendicular to the draw.

[loimprevisto]

@Whitewolve202: I'm not familiar with Dark Souls, do you mean this? It's an idea that I've had in the back of my mind for at least 10 years but I can't remember where it originally came from. I couldn't find any hits on Google so I figure it must have been either something I chatted about with my friends or something that was brought up on a long-since-archived mailing list discussion.

@Movin: The damage isn't really increased, it's the base damage for a large or huge longbow as mentioned in the equipment section of the PRD (1d8 --> 2d6 --> 3d6). I'd thought about playing with strength bonuses, but it seemed that it could get unbalanced from a standard composite bow very quickly. My first thought was to let them use 1.5 x STR like a two-handed weapon but with the Pathfinder price for adding STR to bows and the crafting rules, that would make the cost quite high and make each one require months of effort to craft. The guidelines for staging up ranged weapons only mention it affecting damage and not range, so the range increments for each size were guestimated too.

My goal is to introduce a way for centaurs to use their mass effectively and be able to disregard their racial 'undersized weapons' rule, but in a balanced fashion that won't make centaurs gods of the wilderness. The elements that I'd like to combine in some manner to achieve that are:

A staged up longbow, Large or Huge
A tradeoff for using it, that will limit the archer's mobility
A tradeoff for using it, that will still size penalties if the weapon is not braced
A price that makes it plausible for a centaur herd to field many of them

Conceivably, both of them could be used in different circumstances as separate weapons like a siegebow (large) and a great siegebow (huge).

Large: swift action to deploy or remove, can be fired without bracing at standard -2 penalty (2d6/160')
Huge: move action to deploy or remove, standard action to fire. Can only fire while braced and take -2 penalty for size (3d6/220')

While braced in the ground siege bows can only fire at ground-level targets.

What do you guys think would be the best way to incorporate rules for using strength modifiers and setting the price for the bows?

[LazarX]

The important thing you need to remember about Centaurs is that while they may be Large creatures, their torso part is the same size as that of a standard Human. They don't have Large arms, Large Hands, or Large Heads.

They're basically on the same scale as a mounted Human on a warhorse, only they're one creature instead of two.

[loimprevisto]

@LazarX: Yep, I've been keeping that in mind. If it was just a bow for large/huge creatures like giants, the mechanic would be a straightforward matter of staging up the damage dice. I was looking at some of the illustrations and trying to figure out what weapons and tactics would best allow them to use their size, strength, and 2000lb mass to their advantage. The pictures already show pole arms like a lance and I'm testing the waters here to see if it seems reasonable that they could put more weight behind a bow.

I picture them driving a large portion of the bow into the ground (a 2-3 foot spike), grasping the bowstaff with one hand and the string with the other- probably using a leather finger tab to help them apply all of that draw strength without hurting their hands. Then they'd essentially sit down, putting their full body weight behind the draw and letting fly. Does that description make sense?

[LazarX]

loimprevisto wrote:

I picture them driving a large portion of the bow into the ground (a 2-3 foot spike), grasping the bowstaff with one hand and the string with the other- probably using a leather finger tab to help them apply all of that draw strength without hurting their hands. Then they'd essentially sit down, putting their full body weight behind the draw and letting fly. Does that description make sense?

Not really... because it defeats the essential advantage and defense of the centaur archer.... his mobility. And considering how the torso is built I can't imagine how a bow like that would be built and pulled... that torso is pretty high off the ground.